


capture a heart

by horizonyunho



Series: soulmates ateez [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, I Tried, M/M, Writer's Block, this is so choppy ugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horizonyunho/pseuds/horizonyunho
Summary: if anyone asked, san would never be interested in a science major.
Relationships: Choi San/Jeong Yunho, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Series: soulmates ateez [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737763
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90





	capture a heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SunriseMingi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunriseMingi/gifts).



“You’re such an idiot,” San grumbled as he tended to Yeosang’s wounds, glad when Yeosang had the decency to look slightly apologetic—though he was sure that, given the chance, Yeosang would’ve run back at Minjun for round two of their fight.. “Of all the people you could’ve fought, you had to fight the nuclear science club president when this university is swarmed by nuclear science majors?”

“Those people didn’t hurt my best friend,” Yeosang grumbled, wincing as San went through and disinfected his wounds. “Minjun did.”

“Minjun found his soulmate.”

“I don’t know about you, but when I was dating Dongju, and I woke up one morning aged because I had somehow met my soulmate the previous day without knowing it, my first instinct wasn’t to bring them to the same bed Dongju and I shared,” Yeosang said, causing a laugh from San, who still remembered the long warning Youngjo had given Yeosang when the latter had announced his intention to date Dongju. “I think I was a good enough boyfriend; you know what’s not being a good boyfriend? Fucking the nuclear science club secretary—” knock, knock, knock “—in the same bed you’d intended on moving into with your current part—” knock, knock, knock, knock.

Yeosang playfully rolled his eyes as the knocking continued. San’s dorm suite was the closest to the entrance of the residence hall, which meant he had become, by default, the person to open the door to those that had somehow lost or forgotten their student ID cards. 

One of San’s suitemates, Harin, poked his head out from his dorm. “Who’s knocking like the police?”

Yeosang laughed. “Jeong Yunho, probably. He’s always forgetting his ID in the morning.”

“He doesn’t do it that often,” San insisted, leaving the suite in order to open the residence hall door, rushing once he noticed that the figure shivering outside in the rain was, indeed, Jeong Yunho. “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” he said, opening the door. “I would have come here earlier if Yeosang hadn’t gotten himself into a fight like the dumbass he is,” San added, inwardly wincing when he remembered that the awning outside the residence hall door had been removed earlier that week for renovations, meaning that many of Yunho’s things would surely be soaked.

“It’s about time,” Yunho joked, earning glares from the student sat at the front desk near the residence hall entrance for the water droplets he was leaving behind him. San followed him, continuing his apologies. “But seriously, it’s fine--I forgot that my Korean literature lecture was cancelled, so it was poor planning on my part.”

“But Professor Park’s gonna kill you.”

Yunho smiled. “No, he won’t—neuroscience major, remember?”

;;;

Within the next week, it seemed like the whole university had found out about Minjun cheating on San; and while he and Yeosang had always joked about feeling like minnows in the midst of sharks, being that they were both humanities majors in a university that was mostly catered to those that were intent on pursuing the sciences, he truly felt like prey this time. It seemed like everyone was watching his every move, having decided that it had to be San’s fault that Minjun had cheated. 

“The fact that they claim you aging is a sign that you must have cheated on Minjun before is such bullshit,” Yeosang argued, waving one of the study guide packets from his History of the Early Joseon Period class for emphasis. “Hell, I didn’t start aging until about a month after I had met Wooyoung, and it took me so long to realize I started aging because of him.”

“Who the hell would I have cheated on Minjun with, anyway?” San muttered, flipping through his own notes. He made sure to keep his voice quiet, as he was sat at the coffee table near the residence hall entrance, and the student worker at the desk was a step away from banning him from the area. “Literally most of our friends go to other universities because they’re not idiots that go to science-focused universities to study history and literature.”

“You could date Jeong Yunho,” Yeosang suggested.

“I’m not going to date Yunho just to spite Minjun,” San said, adding, “besides, he probably already knows who his soulmate is.”

Yeosang raised his eyebrows. “And how do you figure that?”

“Because no one as attractive as Jeong Yunho has that kind of problem,” San pointed out. Before Yeosang could make a retort about the likelihood of Jeong Yunho finding his soulmate, his phone alarm rang, reminding him that he should start making his way towards his environmental geology class. He settled for childishly picking sticking out his tongue at San as he picked up his books, mumbling a quick “See you!” as he ran off. San had rolled his eyes in response, but he soon wished that Yeosang had stayed--finding the quiet atmosphere almost unsettling, especially when he considered the fact that the student worker kept shooting warning glances in his general direction. 

“Would you look at that, it’s a wild, rare literature major,” Yunho teased, having noticed San’s feeble attempt at pretending to have company—a few of his other textbooks scattered around, accompanied by some of Minjun’s old notes. Knowing Minjun’s study habits, he probably wasn’t missing them too terribly, anyway. “A humanities major? In this godforsaken science-focused university? More likely than you think!”

“Why are science majors always so annoying?” San shot back, though he began cleaning up his mess in order to allow Yunho a decent seating space.

“Please leave or be quiet,” the student worker reprimanded, “you are disturbing the peace.” He glanced pointedly at San, and before San could think of anything remotely resembling a comeback—why did he feel like he’d seen the worker somewhere?—Yunho had picked up a stack of San’s notes.

“Gladly.” And before San could react, Yunho had already started making his way to his own dorm, leaving San to rush after him after picking up his things. When the worker was finally out of earshot, Yunho turned to San. “I’m sorry, it’s just that he aggravates me—he thinks he’s god’s gift to science just because he gets along with some of the laboratory staff, and he’s majoring in nuclear science.”

“Understandable,” San commented, taking his belongings from Yunho so that the latter could open his suite. “I didn’t know other majors thought he was obnoxious.”

“The first thing you should know-” the door swung open and Yunho took him directly to his dorm, the door to Yunho’s individual dorm was blue, with a small dry-erase board bearing his name “-is that everyone thinks a nuclear science major kissing up at this university is bullshit, because this whole damn campus is geared towards them, anyway. That includes the other sciences.”

;;;

San wished he could have taken a picture of Minjun’s expression when the latter saw him leave Yunho’s suite.

“You little shit,” Minjun grumbled, though the only contact he made with San was to shove him into the hallway wall. San chose to ignore him, though he couldn’t help but notice the deep shadows under Minjun’s eyes. When he finally made it back to his own dorm, he was greeted by Yeosang and Mingi sitting on his bed.

“It’s never a good thing when there’s a physics major sat on my bed,” San said, setting his things down on the free space on his desk he could find.

“It’s about Yunho,” Mingi informed cheekily, “he’s trying to find his soulmate.”

“Good for him, what does that have to do with me?”

“Mingi’s still on his stupid soulmate thesis--”

“It’s not stupid,” Mingi insisted, pouting at Yeosang. “If you read my thesis draft--yes I actually have made significant progress, Yeosang, I’m not bullshitting this time--I actually have some decent numbers backing me up on my ideas.”

San raised an eyebrow. “How the hell are you writing your thesis on soulmates when you’re majoring in physics?”

“Physics may not be held in high esteem like nuclear science is, but we're still doing pretty good.” He reached over to take some of the chips Yeosang had been trying to hide from him, managing to take the bag from him. “I’d say we’re doing way better than neuroscience--and well, my advisor pulled a few… strings, we’ll see how that goes, though.”

“I wish,” Yeosang murmured. 

“So what about Yunho?” San asked. 

“He needs someone to help him find his soulmate,” Mingi replied, “you’ll help him, no?”

;;;

“So how did the date go? San asked, looking at the notepad of pre-made questions that Mingi had left for them. It had been a miracle that Mingi’s advisor had managed to get Mingi permission to do his thesis and the appropriate research on soulmates, and the first thing that Mingi had done upon receiving the appropriate permissions had been to send Yunho on a bunch of blind dates--where the prospective dates had been selected by Mingi in accordance with the research he had collected.

“Well, I have no idea how Mingi missed the very obvious factor that Jongho has not met his soulmate, and has not started aging,” Yunho said, taking off the coat that he’d borrowed from one of his suitemates--it made Yunho look dashing, San thought, but of course, no one had asked him what he thought--deciding that he would return it when his suitemate was back. “Other than the fact that he found out that the server that was in charge of our table was his soulmate, I’d say it was pretty good.”

San jot down Yunho’s observations. “Anything else?”

“No,” Yunho smiled, “not really.”

Hongjoong wasn’t Yunho’s soulmate—it ended up being Seonghwa, the librarian from the sixth date—and neither was Junjin, the eighth suitor. Although the notepad Mingi had assigned to Yunho’s case received several updates, Yunho was seemingly nowhere closer to finding his soulmate. Despite Yunho’s assurances that it was fine—all variations of “Choi San, it’s fine…”—San couldn’t help but feel guilty about Yunho’s lack of progress. It wasn’t like Mingi’s theory was completely unreasonable; he’d started testing “testing” his theory on established soulmates, and everything he’d found seemed to support his theory.

“I get secondhand stress from Mingi,” San finally said. They had previously discussed the topic of San’s worries—that he was the one keeping Yunho from finding his soulmate—and Yunho had assured him each and every time that it was not the case. “You’re so calm about this whole thing, so it’s kind of… funny to see Mingi nearly pull his hair out over this thesis, it feels nice to be a humanities major right now.” By the time he was done speaking, he had already curled up next to Yunho on the bed, much to the neuroscience major’s amusement.

“You’re clingy when you’re tired, aren’t you?” He played with San’s hair, receiving only a muffled humph in response. “And hey, all undergraduates have to write an undergraduate thesis to graduate. That includes literature majors.”

“I know,” San smiled, “I’ve had my thesis written since our first year—a very thorough analysis on The House of Bernarda Alba and its societal structure as compared to different modern cultures.”

Yunho immediately stopped playing with San’s hair, resisting the urge to smile as he turned to his other side—San immediately trying to cling to him for warmth. “I hate literature majors.”

“Neuroscience majors are the worst.”

;;;

“Is Song Mingi, physics extraordinaire, crying?” Yeosang teased lightly, watching as Mingi carefully handled the fairly thin, hardcover blue book that was now his thesis, as if it were his firstborn. Although Mingi has chosen to write his thesis on soulmates as a joke, Mingi’s thesis content had been a breakthrough—it had been the first time that anyone had managed to ascertain possible factors as to how soulmates were determined. He’d received an invitation to present his thesis at an international convention, and the first thing that he had done was to ask for the others to come accompany him. Mingi didn’t answer, still holding onto his thesis tightly. When he caught a glance of the actual title. “I still can’t believe you actually named your thesis I Got The Answer: A Soulmate Overview You Didn’t Know You Needed.”

“Actually, I asked Yunho as a joke for suggestions, and he sent me his favorite bird meme video—you know, lemme smash—and I was going to use that,” Mingi recounted, making a show out of “proving” that he hadn’t been crying. “But my advisor told me something like, this is the first real breakthrough about soulmates in the world, you can’t name it after a meme. So I settled on this.”

“A shame, really,” Yunho said, while San rolled his eyes, a soft smile on his face. They had never managed to find Yunho’s soulmate—and if Mingi knew their identity, he didn’t tell—but San has long since decided that, soulmate or not, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Yunho. He had even enlisted some of the others in his plan to confess to Yunho, though he made sure to set his plans for the day after Mingi’s convention. “Lemme Smash would’ve had such a nice ring,” he added, laughing when Jongho immediately crinkles his nose at the suggestion and turned away, as if leaving more space between them would help him forget what Yunho had said.

“Mr.Song and company?” They all went quiet as the staff member called them, Yeosang and Wooyoung immediately taking the opportunity to tease Mingi—each “Mr.Song?” more obnoxious than the last—before Mingi was ultimately escorted onto the stage, leaving the others to join the audience. They didn’t have to wait long before Mingi appeared on stage.

“I can’t believe I owe my life’s work to my ex, and now best friend, Jeong Yunho,” Mingi began, immediately waving at them when he found them in the crowd, Yunho immediately covering his face with his hands as Mingi continued speaking. “We were young when we dated, so we mutually agreed to acknowledge it as an adolescence thing, but he made me promise that I would help him find his soulmate, because that was the one thing he wanted--so here I am today.”

San faced Yunho, “You never told me you dated Mingi.”

“Lapse in judgement,” Yunho joked, but his expression was bright with pride in Mingi. “I’ll tell you my stories of it, after this, if you’d like.”

“When I first decided I would study soulmates in order to do my thesis, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The concept of soulmates seemed so far-fetched, and yet so simple that I wondered what I was doing. Truthfully, I still don’t think it’s completely fair to claim that I do, when there’s still so much to learn and experience. What I can say, is that I have seen first hand how… lovely the connection with soulmates can be--and sometimes it takes something as simple as forgetting your student ID once and waiting in the rain to find that special someone. Thank you.”


End file.
